Problem because of policy change re anon posting

[Mele20]

I just recently got back from a three week vacation. I used public library computers in the town where I was going and I read a thread here and tried to post. I thought I recalled my password but evidently not as it was rejected. So, I decided to create a new membership here. That didn't work either because I waited and waited for the email from this site and didn't get it during the three hours I spent on the public computer.

I think there needs to be a way that members in my situation can post. I regretted the change in policy earlier this year regarding anon posting and am very grateful that my home site has not changed like Wilders has on this issue. Still, I do respect the decision. But could there not be some way where a member could post without waiting for many hours or days when they have forgotten their password? Plus, I wouldn't think Wilders really would welcome members like myself creating new memberships just to be able to post. I saw no way to contact Mike or anyone here about the problem and that is why I tried creating a new membership and then that failed because it took over 24 hours before the email showed up in my mailbox. I used my dslr email address too so the delay can't be blamed on my ISP, Road Runner, which is known to delay mail frequently. It may have been the website that I was using to retrieve my mail that somehow delayed my getting it, but whatever the cause, it meant that I was cut off from posting here simply because I was away and couldn't remember my password.

I felt sad that I couldn't just post as was the case for so long. I never even thought about checking my list of passwords before I left because every time in the past I have been away, I didn't need to be a member to post so if I couldn't recall my password (and I am always logged in here so I probably won't recall it as I never need it ;) ) it used not to matter. I felt frustrated because I couldn't even send a private message to Mike because I wasn't logged in! I think there needs to be a better way to resolve this sort of problem than creating a new membership and then hoping you get the confirmatory email, etc.

I also had a terrible time with the letters and numbers that had to be typed in. I couldn't make those out ...they were way too blurry and funny shapes; I kept typing them wrong. Castlecops used to have it like that but after many complaints they now have numbers that are easy for a human to read and type in. I didn't even realize you had that now as I am always logged in on my home computer. If I were to lose my password list while at home and somehow get logged out here on my home computer, I likely would never be able to log in as I tried at least 20 times to type in those numbers and letters and got them wrong over and over as I had no idea what half of them were supposed to be they were so blurry and malformed and on backgrounds that made it almost impossible to make them out. I think I recall FINALLY getting a set that had decent contrast with the background and were not terribly malformed and I typed them correctly. All that time I was thinking that if I was new here and was wanting to join that I would have given up and gone to another site that had a more friendly membership process or that didn't require membership to post. That is what I do when I encounter sites that use blurry and malformed no contrast letters and numbers I am supposed to type...I just go elsewhere without even trying. I tried at Castlecops over and over because I knew Paul from here and dslr and watched him create computercops so I was motivated there and here because of my long membership but I think many would be new members here will react just as I do to new sites I visit and decide to join so I can post and then the joining is made so difficult that one just moves on to a more hospitable site. I hate to see that happen here as I love this site and want it to get as many members as possible.

[LowWaterMark]

Actually, DSLR's email server is the cause for the delay in this case. They use an anti-spam feature called greylisting, which always rejects incoming emails on the first attempt, forcing the sender to queue up the message and retry later. (Spammers generally don't queue failed messages and retry sending since they mostly use specialty mailing systems and expect a lot of rejections. Queuing and retrying takes a heck of a lot more resources.) I checked the email server log here and the DSLR mail server accepted the message more than an hour after you requested the account creation. If it took longer then that to get to you, then that is a delay within their email system as my log shows exactly when you requested the account creation, when they rejected the message and when they finally accepted it. From the sendmail log on your queued entry: "delay=01:01:30"

As for alternate contact methods, there is one. At the bottom of every page here is a Contact Us link, which can be used by non-logged in members and guests, so that is the means that people have to send us a message regarding things like problems registering, problems reading and completing the image verification (especially for people with vision problems), email block issues, etc.

The image verification used on this board is simply the one vBulletin provides. There is no other choice on it unless I hack their's out, find another and integrate it in. But, we're not going to stop using that capability altogether, since it cuts down on spam. There are automated bots out there that can easily register and auto-spam boards, but things like email confirmation and image verification make it much more difficult.

[Mele20]

Ahh...thanks for the explanation! I knew dslr used some sort of spam filtering but I didn't know exactly what. It doesn't work too well as I don't get any spam in Road Runner boxes but I get a lot in my DSLR one. I must be unlucky and getting those spams that the senders do send again. I was having trouble with the mail2web.com so maybe that is partly why I didn't get it while I was at the library computers. When I got back home, I found mail that I should gotten on mail2web.com from my dslr and RR accounts that I didn't get so I think that service is somewhat unreliable.

I didn't even notice the contact us at the bottom. I looked around for something like that but I guess I didn't look hard enough. Now I know for the future. I will likely need it if I ever lose my password or go another trip without it because I'll need help with the image verification. I do understand why sites use that but it surprises me that the vBulletin one is so difficult for many to read. I don't know where Castlecops got the one they have now but it is such a wonderful improvement over their earlier one. For some reason, I tend to get logged out at Castlecops quite frequently so it has been a blessing to have the easy to read image verification. Yours might be easier for me to read on my own monitor. The library monitors were new LCD's and quite nice and had crisp text but the lighting in the room was harsh and not at all ideal and maybe that contributed to my difficulty with seeing the image clearly.